I have been a member with them since September 14, 2003. I got steam when I bought my ati radeon 9800xt. It came with a steam voucher that gave me every valve game to date and HL2/CS2 when they released. What a steal that was!

Valve certainly knows how to entice its customers to buy stuff... especially this holiday season.

Dosent really surprise me to be honest... with the current financial crisis, expensive petrol and high inflation, people are probably just saving money and spending less by entertaining themselves at home.
(Games are a form of excaping reality and cheaper and safer than drugs )

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Safer then drugs?! Ever since I stopped doing blow I've gained a crazy amount of weight. I'm a walking heart attack now thanks to Steam.

I have been a member with them since September 14, 2003. I got steam when I bought my ati radeon 9800xt. It came with a steam voucher that gave me every valve game to date and HL2/CS2 when they released. What a steal that was!

Valve certainly knows how to entice its customers to buy stuff... especially this holiday season.

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My join date is November 18, 2004, i think i may have bought HL2 and got steam with it.

I'm not going to lie I used to download games back in the day. But ever since steam has made it affordable to get recent games at a great price I havent downloaded a single one and even purchased some of the prior games I downloaded so the devs get the cash.

Now I only have one thing to say valve. So how about since you guys are making so much cash that you put some of it in your product development and complete the next installment of Half-Life already!

edit: Also wondering if Valve is going to be hiring new IS support people after that success. I will be graduating in a 4 months with a degree in Business Information Systems and am wanting to work in the Bellevue, WA area (location of Valve's HQ). Working for Valve would be like a dream come true.

I got a 9600 ( ATI Bundle ) with the HL2 offer is when i joined and waited like a year or more before i got it lol. They don't tell me the date of that but the 1st item i got of them was HL2 ep1 in 07.

Although if i get the chance i will avoid steam and just add it to steam if the game has MP coop in it.

Hey EA...you know how much more successful BF3 would have been had you not fought with Valve?

Yeah, bet the exec which pushed that is feeling pretty foolish. But knowing EA, their execs are seeing this as even more of a challenge. Sigh...please, someone at EA...do what is right. Kill Origin and make up with Valve.

Hey EA...you know how much more successful BF3 would have been had you not fought with Valve?

Yeah, bet the exec which pushed that is feeling pretty foolish. But knowing EA, their execs are seeing this as even more of a challenge. Sigh...please, someone at EA...do what is right. Kill Origin and make up with Valve.

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good points but Valve and EA are partners Like say HF3 comes out ,who is going to publish it for them?Just look at the DVD retail copy of the last 6 games from them ,All will say EA on the box.EA had the right to say no way BF3 will be on Steam ,we will do Origin .

Sigh...please, someone at EA...do what is right. Kill Origin and make up with Valve.

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I love Steam. But honestly, they don't have any real competition. And that is never a good thing. That could lead to a monopoly of the digital distribution of video games. You, as a customer, should always root for the little guy, because without the little guy, the big guy takes over everything and says "f*ck you, we don't have to listen to you, we're the only ones in town that can give you what you want".
Hooray for Valve though, I just hope that EA updates their service so that it can be as leet as Steam in the near future. That's what I want.

lol... yeah staying awake all night listening to repetitive music and running around munching pills makes for a good game of Pacman!

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I think I may be older then you man. When I was running around like an ass doing stuff like that bands like Squirrel Nut Zippers were in style. No pills were involved........that didnt come till later. If you remember Im from Miami originally. Anyways.........I didnt get steam till after Half Life 2 was voted game of the year. So I guess Im a Steam noob.

I love Steam. But honestly, they don't have any real competition. And that is never a good thing. That could lead to a monopoly of the digital distribution of video games. You, as a customer, should always root for the little guy, because without the little guy, the big guy takes over everything and says "f*ck you, we don't have to listen to you, we're the only ones in town that can give you what you want".
Hooray for Valve though, I just hope that EA updates their service so that it can be as leet as Steam in the near future. That's what I want.

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If the little guy can provide a competitive product that doesn't suck...then yes, root for them.

Origin has not provided this, nor do they seem capable of providing it in the future. The software is a mess, literally spyware, and for a little guy, EA should be running competitive specials. EA is not. I have not seen them run one deal on Origin that I could not get less on Steam or Amazon.

Here is deal, the little guys aren't running the deals Steam is, or at least not to the same volume. Now no Steam is not always cheapest, but when Steam sales come, I've found more often than not they are cheaper or at least on par. I'm talking about the major sale events, not minor specials.

I will say that this year's holiday sale, Steam was about $.50 higher on titles that have been historically low on the sales. So they were up a little.

But could they become like M$ or Apple? Sure, there is no debating that. But so far, I don't see Valve making the same moves. They are making record sales during sale times when they aren't getting the bigger cut? Really, that shouldn't be. This isn't a time to point fingers at Valve and cry monopoly. We need to point fingers at them and then tell the rest of the industry..."Why the heck are you charging us premium when they clearly do more business when not charging premium?!!"

Be mad at Valve all you want for HL3 or L4D2, but when it comes down to it, they aren't punishing their customers with this crap nickle and dime strategy that M$ and the rest of the industry seem to crave.

If Valve really was the big evil monopoly, they would never run a single Steam sale again. They'd insist their service is a premium and even likely charge subscription for it. Instead they are running deals all the time and doing what the customer wants.

This is the same business strat that Amazon uses. Now sure Amazon's shipping and support have gotten horrid, but they just give the customer what they want and the customer will continue to support them. It is a customer centric strategy which pays off a lot more in economic hardship times than telling them what they want. M$ and Sony can't do it...they treat the customer about as good as they'd treat an enemy.

When Valve stops doing this, they'll lose all their business almost overnight. Heck I would right away drop Steam. And I've gone from hating Steam and one time to now loving it. Origin will fail because EA cannot comprehend this. Their EULA on Origin shows just how they think of their customers. Sorry but treatment like that will not be embraced unless users are forced onto it...ie: XBL.

This is good news for PC gaming and keeping real gaming alive and kicking. Though I am not sure if anybody is aware but Valve has been under pressure by Google and by other market leaders trying to somehow make Valve become a public trading company for the stock market.

I mean they do have the best gaming distribution business in the world right

I like innovate and honest business practices, that's why I love Valve, their service is top notch and their games are awesome and most of them don't get less than 8/10.

Beside, thanks to Steam I've 371 games which I would have probably paid thousands to buy them. I'm a smart buyer, I don't buy the game until every single DLC is out and the game is like 75% off the original price. Still many of my friends pay $60 for games that they would probably play for only 1 or 2 weeks max.

I would be very happy to see Valve grow even more and start to compete with EA and Activision, though I really hope that they stick to their consumer-friendly-honest-business plan, I don't like shady practices or excessive greed "points at Activsion and EA". EA was acting like the consumer-friendly company not long ago before they announced BF3 and released their stupid software Origin, look at them right now, giving us cheesy lies and trying to suck every penny out of our pockets FORCEFULLY !